Tag Archives: Nissan Frontier

I was in the garage the other day under my wife’s car trying to figure out where this odd noise that we are hearing is coming from. I looked over at my Nissan Frontier and was reminded that it is almost (probably way past) time to get some new tires. The truck has about 29,600 miles on it right now and I had said 1,000 miles or so ago that I’d change them at 30K miles. I then was thinking that I should have my 300ZX before the truck hits 30,000 and I’ll be able to postpone getting tires for a bit. I am hoping that I don’t neglect my truck after I get the 300 because I know a lot of my time and funds will be spent to bring the car up to where I want it. I’ll know a lot more next week when I find out if the car needs any immediate attention; I just hope it’s not too immediate since I have to drive it 800+ miles back from Kentucky after I purchase it. I still plan to do all of the upgrades to the truck that I want to do at some point as well but I know there is a chance the car will take precedence. Not to mention the original reason I was out there in the garage that day was for my wife’s car… we all know that one will ultimately get the needed attention before any of the others.

Earlier this year my lovely wife and I underwent major surgery (all she did was give me her kidney!) and during our initial recovery my Step-mom and Dad stayed at our house to help get us to the many follow up appointments that we had to go to since we weren’t allowed to drive. It was while riding with my Dad on one of those many trips that I noticed how relaxed he was when he drove. He would be driving exactly the speed limit with people blazing past us left and right and it didn’t phase him. Normally I would be one of those people blazing past us so I took note of this. It made me realize that as I’m driving like some kind of jerk who is in such a rush that there are great folks like my Dad that I’m getting pissed off at for driving so slow.

Now that I am able to drive again I have noticed that I have slowed down considerably. I still don’t drive the speed limit but instead of averaging 10-15+ mph over the speed limit now I’m keeping it down to 5-7 mph over. I’m not sure if this is because of the impression I got while driving with my Dad or just “oldmanitis” but whatever the cause I think it’s saving me money. That is because one of the awesome things that I’ve noticed is how much mile MPG has improved since the transplant. I used to get anywhere from 15-17 MPG on average but now I’m getting 19-21 MPG.

Nissan Frontier MPG

I’m not sure if these same driving habits will remain in play when I finally get my new 300ZX but I would like to think so. It will be harder to stay off of the throttle I’m sure but the same concept should apply; there is no rush to get there usually it’s just work anyway so it’ll be there even if I’m late which shouldn’t happen anyway since another side effect of oldmanitis is getting up at 5 AM!

There is nothing new to report on the 300ZX search for the day, I briefly considered adding 1992 and 1993 models to my search which would greatly increase my chances to find one but I just don’t like the door mounted seat-belts and can’t go for that… yet.

I decided to talk a little about my Nissan Frontier again. It’s my main vehicle at this time so it does all the work. I’m looking forward to getting the Z because I’ll keep some miles off of the Frontier once I do. I finally got the stop sign damage repaired this last year and have started giving the truck the TLC it deserves. I had some medical issues (maybe I’ll start another blog to talk about that stuff) that left me unmotivated and weak for a while so my vehicles took the back seat. Anyway, I’ve started to make big plans for this truck, right now my budget is small so I’ve just done inexpensive things like add chrome mirror and door handle covers which I think go well with the chrome on the front and rear of the truck. I also ordered chrome instrument cluster rings that I’ve always liked on the LE so since they were pretty cheap I went for it. The install on the door handles and mirrors was a piece of cake as you’d expect. The instrument rings were a different story but still not entirely horrible. I had to take quite a few things off in order to get the instrument cluster out and getting the rings in there was a little tricky but it still wasn’t that hard. I’m happy with these little upgrades even though they amount to little more than bling for the truck.

The next thing I’ll be getting for the Frontier is new tires but after that I have plans for the following in no particular order:

Once I get all of those things I think the little frontier will be one solid ride, it might have to have some new brakes too to help with stopping but we’ll see how that goes. You may wonder why I’d want to consider putting a supercharger on an innocent little truck like mine. That’s kind of what I like about it, you have a harmless looking vehicle that looks bone stock but it’s sporting 100+ more horsepower than when it rolled out of the assembly plant. I’m not planning on driving balls to the wall on the way to work and back every day if I did get it built out the way I want it but I’d like to be able to hold my own if the need arises.

I made this list of upgrades I wanted to do before I decided that I had to have another 300ZX which is why I need to keep my car purchase amount on the low side so that I’ll have money to get them both “sleeper’d” out.